The 2010 Community Congress engaged hundreds of San Franciscans from diverse corners of the city, who united to craft a platform for proactive progressive change. Our goals are ambitious yet practical, and vitally needed in this historic moment: San Francisco is saddled with double-digit unemployment, deepening inequality and entrenched homelessness, structural budget deficits, and an unsustainable and inequitable model of economic development.

As progressives, we are firmly committed to preserving the social, racial, and economic diversity of San Francisco; to the principles of social equity and inclusion; and to ensuring that those who currently live in San Francisco can remain here. The proposals that emerged from a 9-month process, culminating in a weekend-long Congress this August, are motivated by the desire to fundamentally transform and democratize the relationship between people and their government. Through this revitalization of the public sector and other means, we aim to expand economic opportunity for low- and middleincome people, working class and immigrant families, and the artists and other creative workers who contribute to the richness and living history of San Francisco.

We are aware that we need a proactive movement that says “yes,” instead of “no.” So this August hundreds of San Franciscans adopted an inspiring platform of politically actionable proposals, ranging from the creation of a municipal bank and worker-owned co-ops, to robust expansions of affordable housing and local hiring, to reshaping the city’s health and human services delivery system. We invite you to read the full platform and join this evolving dialogue — just the beginning of our longterm effort to transform and reshape the San Francisco policy landscape in favor of economic and social justice and truly community-driven planning and development. Our goal is no less than to create a lasting, broad-based, representative movement to democratize San Francisco’s economy, policy-making, and politics.

Please join us.

IMMEDIATE ACTION AGENDA

1. Establish a Municipal Bank of San Francisco.

2. Establish a publicly owned Municipal Development Corporation to undertake large-scale production of goods and services.

3. Create a Charter-based “San Francisco Health and Human Services Authority” to ensure that our public sector and community-based service system meets the needs of vulnerable populations by conducting long-term comprehensive program and fiscal planning, developing and implementing all health and human service policy including controlling the budget, and monitoring and holding accountable all relevant parties in the service delivery arena.

5. Pass the Right to Remain Act to protect public housing residents’ rights during Hope SF redevelopment.

6. Amend San Francisco’s General Plan to link approvals of new market-rate housing construction to the creation of needed permanently affordable housing and include affordability as a criteria in classifying transit-oriented development.

7. Direct a portion of developer fees on downtown buildings to support community arts.

8. Consolidate existing municipal arts programs into a new Department of Cultural Affairs.

9. Direct City departments to prioritize worker cooperatives when purchasing goods and services.

10. Require all future approvals of large-scale development projects to pay the local living wage, follow local hiring mandates, and provide funding to local worker center organizations to conduct oversight of fair hiring and remuneration standards.

11. Step up implementation of San Francisco’s Transit First policy by enforcing transit-only lanes on congested arterials during the morning commute.

12. Use local hiring programs to employ loaders at heavily-used Muni stops during certain times of the day to facilitate rear-door loading and encourage people to move to the backs of buses.

13. Concentrate on optimizing the effectiveness of Muni’s 70 existing lines by such actions as eliminating the many obstacles to consistent, reliable service.